The Facial Massager

So, when my Beloved came home from work last night, I told him about Grandma and the conversation that I shared with you guys last night. His instant response was: “Well, you know what your next post is… THE FACIAL MASSAGER!”

He is absolutely right.

Allow me to set the scene. This is Thanksgiving of last year. We are at my grandmother’s house, and she lives next door to my Aunt Sherry. Aunt Sherry and Uncle Mark are …. unique. If “unique” means “intentionally country, crude, well-meaning, totally impulsive, sweet as can be, and absolutely lovable.” Mom, myself, Harold (my Best Beloved), and my younger sister Lydia make up the rest of the crew. Then we come to find out that Grandma has invited her friend from church (Baptist!!) over to have dinner with us, since she had just lost her husband a few weeks before, and nobody wanted her to have to go through Thanksgiving alone.

Props for consideration. An Epic Fail on execution.

So right about the time Mom got sent out to Timbuktu to find where this lady lives and pick her up, I began setting the table and noticed that there was…. ahem… a personal toy just sitting in the middle of the dining room table.

You know, right where the turkey would set it off nicely.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I gave Grandma a gentle hint regarding the desirability of removing said object. (Did I mention that it was neon pink with black tiger stripes all the way up it?)

Nothing happened.

I enlisted Aunt Sherry’s help. I personally witnessed her giving Grandma a slightly stronger hint. And she had a very good incentive, because she goes to that church too.

Lydia, I believe, just thought this the height of funny. No help there.

We hear Mom pulling up the driveway. We hear Aunt Sherry shrieking “For God’s sake, Ma, PUT THE G–D— THING AWAY!”

So Mom and the  friend from church come in the door and in all the hugs and introductions and kerfuffle I guess I just assumed that the entire situation had gotten taken care of.

As it turns out, that was overly optimistic. I sat through turkey, stuffing, and God knows what all else…. I have very little memory of the actual dinner, because all my focus was on playing it cool. The table is cleared and the dessert brought out without incident… except, as Lydia was doing the serving, she oh so casually managed to turn the frickin’ thing into a centerpeice.

Nobody said a word about it. I started to breathe again.

Right when I’m trying to decide whether my second piece of pie should be coconut or pecan, Lydia pipes up. She sounds genuintely interested and uber respectful. The perfect granddaughter.

“Grandma, why do you have a vibrator sitting on your dining room table?”

Lest we forget, this is not like she just now noticed. She snickered all through the earlier proceedings. She ARRANGED the TABLE for crying out loud. No, my dear sister had been biding her time all through dinner and had chosen her moment with the impeccable timing that comes from her inborn sense of stagecraft.

Grandma: My what?

Lydia: Your vibrator. (She did, considerately, refrain from saying “Duh!” although it was clearly implied in her tone.)

Grandma: Is that what you call it? I suppose it does vibrate, doesn’t it?

I have never seen my mother’s face so red. Never. Lydia is in high heaven. Harold looks like he wants to be somewhere else – anywhere else. Uncle Mark looks like he’s waiting for the punchline. I daren’t look at the Baptist lady.

Grandma  is still in full flow. “But I just use it on my face, to massage out my wrinkles! And that’s what my mother used it for, too, she bought one in the 70s! I just don’t understand what the problem is!”

Aunt Sherry, with the air of getting something unpleasant over with now, says “But, Ma, it isn’t for your face. That’s not what it was designed for.”

“Well, what is it for?”

So Uncle Mark, with great glee and gusto, told her.

“WELL. I can’t believe my OWN CHILDREN would leave me in ignorance of such a thing. I am never using that FILTHY THING again. NEVER! I’m putting it straight in the next yard sale!!”

Now Aunt Sherry has a pleading tone to her voice. “Ma, you really can’t put that in a yard sale. Really.”

“Well, I don’t see why not! After all, that’s where I bought it!”

Grandma and Pole Dancing

I have often thought of creating a blog for the purpose of sharing the … unique… experience of living with my family. I got a phone call tonight that seemed to me to be tailor made for the purpose.

There’s some back story here. Nobody in my family is really excited to be going to my sister’s wedding, which is next week. So tonight I was on the phone with my mother and somehow it came up that in the special alternate reality we inhabit, we were going to just up and go to Jamaica instead of torturing ourselves with this frickin’ wedding.

Right after I hung up with Mom, my grandmother (Mom’s mother)  called. Grandma is a licenced minister and is scheduled to officiate in the wedding. So I invited her to come to Jamaica with us, since she is perhaps the least enthused of any of us. It took me a few minutes to convince her that we weren’t serious.

Seriously. Grandma has… shall we say… a reality disconnect. Tonight it worked in reverse.

Anyway, once she got that she was really into this plan. But this is the reason I wanted the blog.

Grandma: I really love the way they dance in Jamaica. I wonder if we could take the time to go dancing?

Me: (after savoring for a moment the image of Grandma dancing the tango with her cane) Sure, I think we can make time for whatever we want.

Grandma: I used to be so good at dancing, you know… I knew how to jitterbug and foxtrot and everything. (Pause). I think with my knee the way it is now, though, I’d need something more stable to dance with than a human being.

Me: So, what are you going to dance with?

Grandma: Hmm… I think… yes, a pole! That would be perfect!

Me: A pole? (I might have sounded like I was choking here).

Grandma: Yes. I mean, not a big one, not like a pillar on a building or anything… just big enough to get my hands around.

(It took me a second to wrap my head around that image).

Me: So…. you’re going to pole dance? (I couldn’t help it. I specks I’se the wickedest critter).

Grandma:Yeah! Do you think it would work? Would that be stable enough??

Me: (now I’m actively snickering) Grandma…. do you know what pole dancing is?

Grandma: (She isn’t dumb. She’s starting to smell a trap here.) No…

So I told her.

Grandma: WHAT???!!! And you LED ME ON like that??!! You are JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER!!!!!